It All Comes Down to This: A Novel
3.5/5
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About this ebook
A JUNE 2022 INDIE NEXT PICK
"A true page-turner." —Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful
"A smart and lively novel." —Jess Walter, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins
"Austenesque...this goes down as easily as an Aperol spritz." —Publishers Weekly
With her keen eye for human foibles and emotional truth, humor and deep feeling, acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Therese Anne Fowler delivers a stylish, insightful take on the dysfunctional family dramedy.
Meet the Geller sisters: Beck, Claire, and Sophie, a trio of strong-minded women whose pragmatic mother, Marti, will be dying soon.
Beck, the eldest, is a freelance journalist whose marriage has long been devoid of passion, and she's recently begun to suspect that her husband, Paul, is hiding something from her. Though middle sister Claire is an accomplished pediatric cardiologist, her own heart is a mess, and her unrequited love for the wrong man is slowly destroying her. And while Sophie, the youngest, appears to have an Instagram-ready life of glamorous work and travel, her true existence is a cash-strapped house of cards that may fall at any moment.
But Marti’s will surprises them with its provision that the family’s summer cottage in Maine must be sold, the proceeds split equally between the three sisters. While there’s a ready buyer in C.J. Reynolds, he’s an ex-con with a complicated past and a tangled history with one of the women.
Choices and consequences, mistakes and misapprehensions, obligations and desires: before long, everyone in this cast of indelible characters will have to come to terms with the ways their lives have turned out differently than they expected, as well as the secrets they’ve been keeping from each other––and themselves.
Therese Anne Fowler
THERESE ANNE FOWLER is the New York Times bestselling author of A Good Neighborhood, A Well-Behaved Woman, and Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. Raised in the Midwest, she migrated to North Carolina in 1995. She holds a B.A. in sociology/cultural anthropology and an MFA in creative writing from North Carolina State University.
Read more from Therese Anne Fowler
A Good Neighborhood: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Southern Girl: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for It All Comes Down to This
47 ratings11 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a fun, light, family read. There are twist and turns and everything gets wrapped up nicely in the end. But, none of that detracted from the enjoyment of the story.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Families. Interesting book. Loved the author sly comments
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book is about three sisters dealing with the death of their mother. There was too much philosophical rumination and introspection from these women and not enough action. It got very boring at times. Everything was wrapped up neatly - and perhaps unrealistically - at the end. Not as good as some of the author's previous books.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Another great summer read! I actually got to finish this book outside on a beautiful summer evening with a glass of wine while my husband watched the pups for 10 minutes!!!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5It is hard to review a book when you are neutral - nor really liking it nor having strong feelings one way or the other. I couldn’t relate to the characters but their situations rang close to true. There was just so much running off the rails and so much that could have been solved with a little bit of honesty and by the way when did that go out of vogue? The Geller sisters each have their pluses and minuses and they deal with each other marginally until needs require they try to pull together. Sounds like most families - it’s the pulling together that is so confusing - it spins and spins and spins. The matriarch, Marti, was the most interesting and developed character (at least in my head) and I would have loved to hear her voice overlapping all the “stuff” going on.If you are looking for a book that is part sisterly love (and I emphasize partly), a lot of messy familial relationships that lap around and intertwine and become entangled and are “wow, really”?! - this may be for you. Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for a copy.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It All Comes Down to This by Therese Anne Fowler is a sensitive family drama about the Geller sisters: Beck, Claire and Sophie. Their mother dies leaving undivulged secrets and instructions to settle her estate between all three women. She also specifies that the family “camp” on Mount Desert Island in Maine be sold and also divided between all three. The problem is that Beck wants to keep the cottage and Claire and Sophie want it sold and monies disbursed as per their mother’s instructions. The best features of this novel are the characters. The reader is introduced to each sister’s past and present, denoting the differences between all three. The chapters generally alternate between Beck, Claire and Sophie. The cottage is at the center of the novel and each woman’s future revolves around it. This is a quiet and enjoyable book. Therese Anne Fowler has created great female characters and the book is a reminder that all families have their issues, large or small. I look forward to reading more from this author. Highly recommended. Thank you to St. Martin’s Press, NetGalley and the author for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Geller sisters have been called together because of their mother’s death. Marti left a will and a video with a revelation for her girls. Can these girls overcome what life has to throw at them? These three sisters are so different. First is Beck. Beck is a journalist, want to be novelist. Her marriage is on the rocks but she is unsure how to fix it. Next we have Claire. She is a pediatric cardiologist and she has an unrequited love interest. Finally we have Sophie. Sophie is the “fly by the seat of her pants girl”.Nothing like family to make you want to pull your hair out! I love these three sisters and their relationship. They are not afraid to tell each other what they think. But, when the time comes…they have each other’s backs and they learn to forgive and accept.This story really had me all over the place. I really loved each and every character, even if I wanted to jerk one or two baldheaded because of a bad decision. And believe me…quite a few bad decisions were made by each! Add in the setting of Maine, and I was hooked! I really can see this being a binge series on Hulu or Netflix.The narrator, Barrie Kreinik, is wonderful, especially on all the different voices.Need a good true to life family novel…THIS IS IT! Grab your copy today!I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Families are messy, complicated, and depending on your point of view the narrative can be a completely different story. Family sagas that span generations are some of my favorite books. It All Comes Down To This by Therese Anne Fowler is an immersive, atmospheric story. Be warned reader friends block off some serious reading time for this one, you’re not going to want to put it down! At it’s core this is a story about family, saying goodbye to ideas you once held as canon, and rebirth. It’s a story of forgiveness, recalibration of memories when new information is gained, and allowing yourself and others to redefine and move forward with grace. The story centers around the Geller sisters, Beck, Claire, and Sophie, and their mother, Marti, who is dying. Marti’s last wish, binding in her will, is that the family summer home be sold. This has complicated and differing consequences for each sister. Marti also leaves behind a mystery. An interested buyer, CJ Reynolds, has his own complex past. How these stories converge, overlap, kept me guessing for quite a while.Told through alternating points of view we shift back in time to see how each sister got where she is, what motivates and informs, how their family dynamics work…and don’t. We go back to Marti’s time as a young girl, and CJ’s story is told as well. I loved the relationship between the sisters, their time together at the cottage and would have liked to see more of that. I loved how the author used places as characters; New York City, Mount Desert Island, Paris. I felt immersed in each location and loved every minute. SO well done!I recommend for lovers of family sagas, women’s fiction, and book clubs as there’s so much to discuss. I received a gifted copy for review from St Martin’s Press via Netgalley.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This was a good family drama, but I felt like I needed more background on all three sisters. I also found their mother's secret to be a little unbelievable - that her husband or daughters had never questioned her about her past just doesn't seem realistic. Overall, I liked the story and the writing. Thanks to NetGalley for the digital ARC.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Revelation is risky; suppose it leads to a fall?Ah, but suppose it leads to flight?from It All Comes Down to This by Therese Anne FowlerHaving read Therese Anne Fowler’s last novel A Good Neighborhood, I was eager to read her new novel It All Comes Down To This. It added to my interest to learn it was set in Maine, and when I opened up the book was thrilled to read it’s set on Mount Desert Island. Our first visit there, staying at Acadia National Park, we fell in love and returned year after year.In her Acknowledgements, Fowler notes that she has written in many genres, but “never this kind of bighearted, upbeat tale,” a story that arose from the “darkness of the world around me” during the pandemic. For readers weary in body and soul, here is a book to raise your spirits.The story of three sisters coping with the death of their mother may not sound like the premise for a happy ending, and yes, they all are struggling not only with her death but with her videotaped deathbed revelation, a confession that shocks them. Their mother also requests that they sell the family Maine vacation cabin.Eldest daughter Beck is a mother and homemaker with a comfortable life and grown children. She writes on the side. She loves her husband, but they have never really ‘connected’ in a deep way, or sexually. They are polite and caring, but the distance is growing and their marriage on shaky ground. Her heart was broken as a teen with a summer romance in Maine.The middle daughter Claire is a doctor who is recently divorced after her husband discovered she ‘settled’ for him. Claire juggles her career and child and dog, adding up to tension and high blood pressure.Sophie has a glamourous lifestyle and a multimillion following for SimplySophie! on social media. She wines and dines artists and prospective art buyers, but has a massive credit card debt and no permanent home. She is hovering on the edge of disaster.Meanwhile, a man has returned to the island seeing a home, staying at the home of an old friend. He wants to buy the sister’s family cabin. But he shares a history with one of them, and it won’t be working in his favor.When the sisters met up at the cabin, they finally have a reckoning, and faced with their truths, must decide where they go from there.Fowler offers wonderful characters, and adeptly reveals backstories and inner lives in a suspenseful way. Readers will be hooked by the story and gratified by the ending. And the message of what’s important in life–“it all comes down to this”–is essential.I received a free ARC and egalley from the publisher. My review is fair and unbiased.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Families are messy, complicated, and depending on your point of view the narrative can be a completely different story. Family sagas that span generations are some of my favorite books. It All Comes Down To This by Therese Anne Fowler is an immersive, atmospheric story. Be warned reader friends block off some serious reading time for this one, you’re not going to want to put it down! At it’s core this is a story about family, saying goodbye to ideas you once held as canon, and rebirth. It’s a story of forgiveness, recalibration of memories when new information is gained, and allowing yourself and others to redefine and move forward with grace. The story centers around the Geller sisters, Beck, Claire, and Sophie, and their mother, Marti, who is dying. Marti’s last wish, binding in her will, is that the family summer home be sold. This has complicated and differing consequences for each sister. Marti also leaves behind a mystery. An interested buyer, CJ Reynolds, has his own complex past. How these stories converge, overlap, kept me guessing for quite a while.Told through alternating points of view we shift back in time to see how each sister got where she is, what motivates and informs, how their family dynamics work…and don’t. We go back to Marti’s time as a young girl, and CJ’s story is told as well. I loved the relationship between the sisters, their time together at the cottage and would have liked to see more of that. I loved how the author used places as characters; New York City, Mount Desert Island, Paris. I felt immersed in each location and loved every minute. SO well done!I recommend for lovers of family sagas, women’s fiction, and book clubs as there’s so much to discuss. I received a gifted copy for review from St Martin’s Press via Netgalley.